Jay Lake: Writer

[links] Link salad boogies back to Texas

Entry Points into Fiction: Text Shows You How to Read It — Jeff VanderMeer is wise.

Brit Lit Map — A cartographic Wordle.

Online map calculates travel times in Ancient Rome — Cool! (Via a mailing list I’m on.)

The Liberating Embrace Of Uncertainty — I don’t agree with everything in this piece, as the writer buys a little too much into the woo side of things, and deliberately conflates empirical truth and spiritual truth, but it’s still pretty interesting.

A Mathematical Challenge to Obesity — Interestingly, we also found that the fatter you get, the easier it is to gain weight. An extra 10 calories a day puts more weight onto an obese person than on a thinner one. I could have told them that.

Humanoid Robot Swarm Synchronised Using Quorum Sensing — Proof-of-principle experiment shows how humanoid robots can co-operate on a large scale by copying the behaviour of social insects and bacterial colonies. The article is basically talking about SkyNet, but the accompanying photo is hilariously cute.

Cambrian shutter of doom becomes sucker of worms — This photo is the opposite of cute.

Researchers generate electricity from viruses — Imagine charging your phone as you walk, thanks to a paper-thin generator embedded in the sole of your shoe. This futuristic scenario is now a little closer to reality. Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a way to generate power using harmless viruses that convert mechanical energy into electricity. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek who ever lived — The Oatmeal goes to town on Tesla and Edison.

A Generation Hobbled by the Soaring Cost of College

6 Ridiculous Lies You Believe About the Founding of America — This topic is treated in great detail in the book 1491. (Thanks to Melissa Shaw.)

The Right’s Righteous Frauds — With a headline like that, this piece could refer to almost any leader in the conservative movement.

Wrong man was executed in Texas, probe says — Because capital punishment makes us all safer.

‘Hug The Monster’: Why So Many Climate Scientists Have Stopped Downplaying the Climate Threat — Gee, maybe they’ve been quiet because of savage, fact-free attacks from certain ideological sectors. Whaddaya think?

Is world outpacing U.S. on health care? — Nothing to see here, citizens. Move along. We don’t want any of that Kenyan Muslim socialist HCR that was originally proposed by the Heritage Foundation and promoted by the GOP.

How Economics Explains The Rising Support for Gay Marriage — Interesting thesis. My own experiences certainly dovetail into this discussion.

Gun Rights — From the Mitt Romney campaign Web site: Mitt will work to expand and enhance access and opportunities for Americans to hunt, shoot, and protect their families. Wow, the things conservatives get up to in their free time. (Via danjite.)

Who Really Caused The Deficit? — Under Obama’s watch the national debt has risen from roughly $10 trillion to $15 trillion, a record high. But to what extent are his decisions while in office to blame? The answer: very little. The vast bulk of the debt is the result of policies enacted during the Bush administration coupled with automatic increases in federal spending and decreases in tax revenue triggered by the economic downturn. Those are economic facts of life known to experts but that often gets lost in the political debate (and which Obama’s opponents are willing to obscure). That’s the Tea Party message in a nutshell: Mad about the deficit? Blame Obama and vote for the guys who created it!

?otd: Austin or San Antonio?

5/16/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hours (Kalimpura copy edits)
Body movement: n/a (airport walking to come)
Hours slept: 6.0 (fitful)
Weight: 241.6 (!)
Currently reading: Light Breaker by Mark Teppo

Tags: climate, Cool, Culture, education, Funny, gay, guns, healthcare, history, Language, Links, Personal, Politics, Process, Tech, weird, Writing

Posted: 4:24 am Wed May 16 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad shines white light and wants to show how everything still turns to gold

On Wordcount, and Snitty Entitlement — Lilith Saintcrow is interesting.

Superheroes and cringe comedy: Why women aren’t allowed — Pandagon on The Avengers, and specifically, the Black Widow character.

5 Transformative Uses for Disney’s Touch-Sensitive Technology

Legalize Pot, Save Public Education, and end Student Indebtedness

Report: Global biodiversity down 30 percent in 40 years — Freshwater tropical species hardest hit, says World Wildlife Fund. The human race is an Extinction-Level Event.

All the Water on Planet Earth — Interesting visual illustration of the volume of the hydrosphere. However, look closely at Greenland on the ‘dry’ globe. Pretty sure that’s an ice sheet showing there.

Record-setting 2012 warmth largely confined to North America, western Europe — One of the ironies here is that, even though the global temperatures are fairly typical of the last decade, the unusual spring warmth might have an outsized effect on public opinion. People in the US seem to rely on their personal experience (along with the economy) when they formulate their opinion on climate change. Right. Because what does the data count against staving off the evil liberals?

Prosecutorial Discretion And Child Sexual Abuse — Ta-Nehisi Coates commenting on a New York Times report on the sexual abuse of children among ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn. This is precisely why we don’t need religious “morality” in our laws and social norms. Are Christianist congregations any better about this?

Another “Hot Text” For the War on Women: Rosemary’s Baby — Interesting. (Via scarlettina.)

Equality is bigger than the president — Barack Obama and gay marriage. If school desegregation amendments had been placed on state ballots in the 1950s, “separate but equal” might still be the law of the land in the South. Fortunately, state-sponsored segregation was not put to a popular vote. The “will of the people” isn’t always right. That’s the error of majoritarianism.

Why We Regulate — But regulations are evil! Ask any conservative. (Apparently conservatives don’t drink air, breathe water, take medicine or expect a stable economy.)

What Eduardo Saverin Owes America (Hint: Nearly Everything)

Austerity geniuses — Hullabaloo on the magic of Republican economics, as practiced by (among others) Democrats.

?otd: Will the tune come to you at last?

5/15/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hours (Kalimpura copy edits)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.25 (solid)
Weight: 242.2 (!!)
Currently reading: Light Breaker by Mark Teppo

Tags: business, climate, Culture, gay, gender, Links, Movies, nature, Personal, Politics, Process, reviews, Science, sex, Tech, Writing

Posted: 5:03 am Tue May 15 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad can dance if it wants to

Special Needs in Strange Worlds | Jay Lake – Cancer and Writing — A weekend reacharound repost, because I think this is important. In which I guest blog at Bookworm Blues.

Behind Every Great Novelist — Oh, how true… (Thanks to goulo.)

Fantasy Philately: Collecting Stamps from Tatooine and Alderaan? — (Thanks to scarlettina.)

Women are better than men — Roger Ebert is, as usual, interesting.

Radioactive man? Milford resident pulled over by state police — Weird. (Thanks to my Aunt M.)

Human-Caused Lunar Methane — Hahahaha. (Via threeoutside.)

It’s Not So Lonely at the Top: Ecosystems Thrive High in the Sky — The Amazon tepuis. I would love to go see these. (Via my Dad.)

Capitalists and Other Psychopaths — More on the psychopath ratio on Wall Street. Language Log injects a note of reality into the discussion.

“At a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me, personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” — Pharygula takes issue with Obama’s comments on gay marriage.

Top GOP Pollster to GOP: Reverse On Gay Issues — I’d love to see this happen, but it isn’t going to. The GOP is enslaved to its base, which continues to slaver for an ever more closed and intolerant society. And a lot of Republican figures would have to eat a hell of a lot of crow to walk back their stance on gay marriage. (Via my Aunt M.)

Evangelicals Unhappy With GOP’s Gay Marriage Strategy — Huh. Whaddaya know?

U.S. Ranks as 25th Best Country to Be a Mother — A woman in the United States is more than seven times as likely to die of a pregnancy-related cause in her lifetime than a woman in Italy or Ireland. Gee, I wonder which political movement in this country is dedicated to undermining women’s health at every turn, and fiercely opposed to ay efforts to rationalize and improve the healthcare system. We’re number 25! Thanks, conservative America.

Romney, bullying, and me [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ] — Another weekend reacharound repost, because I think this is important, and the comments I got on both sides of the blog are also important.

Republicans only interfere with morals — Republicans claim to be the party of small government, but the reality is that they’re the party of using government when they see fit. When dealing with religious beliefs, Republicans talk about government staying out of the way. When it comes to personal choices dealing with relationships, what religion others follow, or choices about a women’s body, small government rhetoric is pushed aside and intrusive government arrives with a vengeance.

Bush Convicted of War Crimes in Absentia — Unfortunately, here at home we will never see any review of the Bush administration’s conduct concerning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As any conservative can tell you, blow jobs are much more important than the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people on knowingly false premises. So is Kenyan Muslim socialism. (Via danjite.)

?otd: Can you leave your friends behind? (Note the importance of proper apostrophe placement, or lack thereof, in that question.)

5/14/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hours (Kalimpura copy edits)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.75 (solid)
Weight: 244.4 (!!!)
Currently reading: Light Breaker by Mark Teppo

Tags: Cancer, Christianism, Cool, Culture, economy, Funny, gay, gender, health, healthcare, interviews, Iraq, Links, nature, Personal, Politics, Process, Religion, Science, weird, Writing

Posted: 4:51 am Mon May 14 2012 | Comments(0) |

[personal] Happy Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day to my mom and step-mom, and to Mother of the Child, and to you.

Whoever you are, you probably started out life with a mother. If you’re lucky, you still have her. You might be a mother, or be partnered with a mother. If you have kids, they quite possibly have a mother. Even if you’re a male mom, you’re still a mother.

So, well, Happy Mother’s Day to you and all the mothers in your life.

Tags: family, Personal

Posted: 6:50 am Sun May 13 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad celebrates its moms

You don’t have to read my books — Justine Larbalestier explains this very well. I take a nearly identical position. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

Absolutely worth the drive — John Booth on Friday night’s open dinner in Columbus, OH.

Langweil’s model of Prague — This is cool. Of course, as a writer, I know nothing whatsoever about obsessive creative behavior.

Searching for meaning in distant solar systems — Is it better for a science writer to be technically correct or understood? These questions apply to SF writers as well, albeit with a slightly different slant.

Weird deep sea creatures — Art guru James Gurney with some bizarre images. In case you needed to write about aliens today.

New Study On Manta Rays Reveals Their Hidden Life

We’re all mutants now — There are a lot of us now, and most of us are a little bit off The headline is hilarious if slightly misleading.

Off the Charts: Shrinking Government — As Andrew Wheeler says, “[G]overnment spending has dropped substantially under Obama, while the private sector has surged. But you know what they say about facts’ obvious liberal bias.”

Many blacks shrug off Obama’s new view on gays — I have always been baffled by this intersection of racial issues and gay issues.

Sen. Rand Paul: Didn’t think Obama’s view ‘could get any gayer’ — Stay classy, conservative America. It’s what you do best.

An open letter to the right wing in the wake of the passage of Amendment One in North Carolina — As usual, the people who most need to read this never will, and if somehow they do, they will reject it out of hand. (Snurched from Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

Bullying and Business — Scrivener’s Error with more on Romney and bullying from a business analysis perspective. Dovetails nicely with my post of yesterday [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ] on Romney and bullying.

Mean Boys — While I have real reservations about holding senior citizens to account for what they did as seniors in high school, I have no reservations about expecting presidential candidates to know how to properly address the mistakes they once made. More on Romney in the New York Times.

In address at Christian university, Romney to urge graduates to honor commitments to family — It’s not like I was going to vote for Romney anyway, but lending his name to the educational and intellectual fraud that is an Evangelical institution like Liberty University does not improve my opinion of the man one whit.

Romney’s Anachronism Problem — Conservative commentator Daniel Larison remarks on how Mittens is running against a now-distant past.

?otd: How’s your mother?

5/13/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.75 hours (Kalimpura copy edits)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.5 (solid, plus 4.0 hours of fitful airplane napping)
Weight: 244.6 (!!!)
Currently reading: Light Breaker by Mark Teppo

Tags: Art, Books, business, Christianism, Cool, Food, Funny, gay, Language, Links, nature, Ohio, Personal, Politics, Process, race, Religion, Science, Travel, Videos, Writing

Posted: 6:15 am Sun May 13 2012 | Comments(0) |

[politics|culture] Romney, bullying, and me

Yesterday, in Link Salad, I posted this:

Romney Apologizes For Bullying In Prep School, Says He Didn’t Know Victim Was Gay — I can and do say a lot of negative things about Romney, but I’m not sure very many of us could stand up to being accountable as mature adults for what we did in high school. (Via my Aunt M.)

That stirred some passionate comments on both instances of my blog:

twilight2000: Sorry – but Bullshit. You can argue the average teen shit maybe, but he’s being described as a bully and a terror by more than one school mate. You get to be guilty for assaulting kids and terrorizing them.

jere7my: He was also eighteen at the time, and a legal adult. There are a lot of people sitting in jail for things they did at eighteen that weren’t half as bad. (Of course, most of them aren’t wealthy and white.)

chessdev: Agreed. Additionally, it only took 40 years AND a Presidential campaign for him to see the light… and we should commend his coming forward (when this was going to surface anyway most likely?)

jimvanpelt: Like your other commentors here, I’m less likely to give Romney a pass on this one. As Frank Wu said in his blog today, “Would you want the bully of your sixth grade class elected President?” I’m a firm believer in character change and redemption, so it’s entirely possible that he’s moved a long way from those days, but, since I already don’t like or trust him, I’ll keep this story as another data point.

elfs: [Excerpted from a long, thoughtful comment] When people his own staff called to cover for him instead described him as “evil” and prone to “Lord of the Flies moments,” no, really, you’re looking at a man’s character.

Stephen A. Watkins: [Excerpted from a long, thoughtful comment] As someone who was bullied for being wrongly perceived as gay when I was younger… I disagree with the idea that adults oughtn’t be held accountable for the nasty things they do when they are in high school. And his “apology” was a total non-apology.

Cora Buhlert: [Excerpted from a long, thoughtful comment] Pinning a fellow student to the ground to forcibly cut his hair goes way beyond a simply prank – that qualifies as assault IMO. Besides, Romney was 18 at the time, i.e. of an age where he should have known better, and not 12 or 14.

For whatever it’s worth, let me establish my own scrap of cultural authority on this question by saying that from a very early age through about age 14, I was the target of some pretty intense and difficult bullying. I was the new kid in school almost every year, exceptionally socially awkward even by the standards of my peer group, had a big mouth, and was almost always literally the slowest, clumsiest kid in the class. I’m not talking about name calling, either. Among many other things, I was forced to drink urine, stripped and stuffed in a trash barrel, battered with school desks and then buried in a mound of them, routinely threatened and robbed of my lunch (or lunch money), and so forth.

This being the 1970s, the most common response from my parents and teachers was, “What did you do to antagonize him?” I cannot remember a single instance of accountability for any of the boys who tortured me, even when their actions were witnessed by adults. At times, I was punished at school as an instigator. Often the bullies were star athletes picking on the slow weak kid, safely cloaked in the athletic privilege that begins to pervade even in upper grade school. There was an attitude that boys will be boys, and I just needed to toughen up and build my character. And besides, I had a big mouth, so I probably had it coming.

So, yeah, bullying is an intensely emotional issue for me, with a lot of triggers.

And quite frankly, I’d be amazed of any of the kids who did that stuff to me even remember it today. The experience of the bully is very different from the experience of the victim. The intense, emotional humiliation of being on the receiving end of that treatment can scar for life. For most of the bullies, it was an amusing way to pass a lunch break or a playground recess. Their actions had no great significance to them. In the battlefields of childhood, bullying is asymmetrical warfare.

What does this story mean? That Mitt Romney is arrogant, entitled and self-involved? That he unthinkingly uses his social power for his own amusement and benefit? I can’t believe anyone in America is surprised by this. And for a conservative electorate that values heteronormative masculinity above almost all other traits (c.f. George W. Bush’s “flight suit” moment), I suspect this story is validating and comforting. After all, here was candidate Romney in his youth fighting for what’s right and putting the wrong people in their place.

All that being said, I still hold to my original comment. How many of us could stand up to being accountable as mature adults for what we did in high school? I have many reasons to oppose Romney’s candidacy, rooted in common sense, in patriotism, in my understanding and experience of what Republican governance means to this country. That he was a childhood bully is a feature of Candidate Romney, not a bug. I don’t endorse or agree with that, but in the end, how different is his behavior at 18 from his behavior at Bain Capital, or even today? How different is the behavior of the GOP as measured by its platforms and legislation?

This is who he is. This is who the Republican party is, bullying the poor and the gay and women and little brown people the world over. And millions of my fellow Americans approve.

That’s the depressing aspect of this story to my way of thinking.

Tags: Culture, Personal, Politics

Posted: 2:54 am Sat May 12 2012 | Comments(10) |

[links] Link salad flies home

Special Needs in Strange Worlds | Jay Lake – Cancer and Writing — In which I guest blog at Bookworm Blues.

Avengers Enthuse Post — cathshaffer pins down a lot of what was so very good about The Avengers from a story critique perspective.

Why fiction is good for you — (Via daveraines.)

Evil Clown hired for stalking, threats and a pie in the face — An ‘evil’ clown who stalks and threatens kids is being hired by parents as a birthday treat. (Via Mike Brotherton.)

Chinese Physicists Smash Distance Record For Teleportation — The ability to teleport photons through 100 kilometres of free space opens the way for satellite-based quantum communications, say researchers. Consider the implications of that headline. Until quite recently, it would have been SFnal on several levels. Today it’s just ordinary news. I love living in the future.

Mighty Moth Man — An evolutionary biologist’s posthumous publication restores the peppered moth to its iconic status as a textbook example of evolution.

Baby, 18 months old, ordered off plane at Fort Lauderdale airport — Apparently the child’s name was on the TSA’s no-fly list. Feel safer?

Game Over for the Climate — Global warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening. Unless, of course, you live in the facts-optional universe of the Republican party.

Top ten reasons given to ban same-sex marriages — Hahahah.

In the battle between morality and faith, morality is winning — When asked by The Barna Group what words or phrases best describe Christianity, the top response among Americans ages 16-29 was “antihomosexual.” “Intolerant” comes to mind as well.

U.S. Military Taught Officers: Use ‘Hiroshima’ Tactics for ‘Total War’ on Islam — Feel safer now? (Via danjite.)

Fox News guest laments ‘mistake’ of letting women vote — Conservatives, classing up the joint since, well, never. And determined to remain on the wrong side of history no matter what it takes. (Via shsilver.)

Top Romney aide gleefully outed transgender woman, ending her political career — Yep.

Romney backs away from gay adoptions — Keep pandering, Mitt. The more Americans realize that the Republican party stands for an intolerant and closed society, the better chance we have of avoiding your presidency. I still remember what happened the last time we has a Republican president.

The Big Flip — Everyone agrees American politics have become completely polarized. Perhaps more remarkable is another change: over the past half-century, the two parties completely switched roles, with the G.O.P. turning into rebels and the Democrats defending the status quo.

?otd: How many time zones in the Soviet Union?

5/12/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.25 hours (WRPA)
Body movement: n/a (airport walking to come)
Hours slept: 6.25 (solid)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: Light Breaker by Mark Teppo

Tags: Cancer, climate, Cool, gay, gender, health, interviews, Iraq, Links, Movies, Personal, Politics, Religion, reviews, Science, Travel, weird, Writing

Posted: 2:24 am Sat May 12 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad ties another one to the racks, baby

Aussie Delicacy Vegemite Loses Some of Its Savory Appeal

Path Dependence and the Stupidity of LED Light Bulbs — Why are we cramming 21st century technology into a socket designed by Edison? I found this pretty interesting.

The making of modern humans — If some of our ancestors interbred with Neanderthals, are we really modern?

Vesta asteroid is ancient protoplanet

Unprecedented Maya Mural Found, Contradicts 2012 “Doomsday” Myth — Yeah, because the course of the planet was otherwise going to be controlled by the myths of a long-decayed Mesoamerican civilization.

USB tampon flash drive — For when you never, ever want anyone else to touch your business. (Via David Goldman.)

Can I Trust Those Evil Pharmamancers With My Life? — cathshaffer (who knows whereof she speaks) on Big Pharma. Interesting read.

Someone has hacked Google News. Check out this screen shot I took this morning. Look carefully at the cutline beneath the headline, then check out the story. (Or, as Charlie Stross has pointed out, more likely someone has hacked the Seattle Times.)

Missing words from 9-11 tribunal: CIA and “big-boy pants” — Because, um, yeah. I got nothing. Feel safer? (Via danjite.)

Romney Apologizes For Bullying In Prep School, Says He Didn’t Know Victim Was Gay — I can and do say a lot of negative things about Romney, but I’m not sure very many of us could stand up to being accountable as mature adults for what we did in high school. (Via my Aunt M.)

?otd: Hey kids, where are you?

5/11/2012
Writing time yesterday: 2.0 hours (WRPA, mostly galley edits)
Body movement: 60 minute urban walk
Hours slept: 6.25 (solid)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: Light Breaker by Mark Teppo

Tags: Australia, Cool, Culture, Food, Funny, healthcare, Language, Links, media, Personal, Politics, Science, Tech

Posted: 3:42 am Fri May 11 2012 | Comments(7) |

[links] Link salad drives that hot rod Lincoln

The frequent fliers who flew too much — Many years after selling lifetime passes for unlimited first-class travel, American Airlines began scrutinizing the costs — and the customers.

Eating Well Without the Flavor of Shame — Diet and flavor. Interesting.

The Quantum Biology Conundrum — If quantum mechanics plays an important role in biology, we’ll want to copy it. If it doesn’t, we’ll want to know why not.

Jewel Caterpillar — Weirdly beautiful. (Via willyumtx.)

Light from Alien Super-Earth Seen for 1st Time — This is so damned cool.

Unmanned vessel could soon be working for Navy — What could possibly go wrong!? (Via David Goldman.)

Methane Leaking through the Cracks — The fragile and rapidly changing Arctic is home to large reservoirs of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. As Earth’s climate warms, that methane is vulnerable to possible release into the atmosphere, where it can add to global warming. Once again, the natural world joins in the liberal conspiracy that is global warming.

Jon Stewart, Religion Teacher Extraordinaire — (Snurched from Scrivener’s Error.)

The Myth About Marriage — Those who do not want to let gay partners have the sacredness of sacramental marriage are relying on a Scholastic fiction of the thirteenth century to play with people’s lives. Walking through Seatac Airport this morning, I caught thirty seconds of some Christianist talking head desperately clinging to the notion that marriage was between one man and one woman, and had been so for five thousand years of human history. (My slight paraphrase.) Taking that statement in purely religious terms, I’m an atheist, and even I know King Solomon had more than a few wives, and that modern religious traditions from Islam to Mormonism support polygamy. In other words, his statement was blatant, knowing lie. What the Bible likes to call false witness, right there in the Ten Commandments. Why do the Liars for Jesus get to on television and spread this counterfactual crap in support of their personal bigotry?

Obama says same-sex couples should be able to marry — This is what being a liberal-progressive means. Standing up for what is right regardless of the bigotry and intolerance of others. Conservatives were wrong about slavery. They were wrong about women’s suffrage. They were wrong about child labor. They were wrong about segregation. They were wrong about interracial marriage. They were wrong about birth control. And just as they’ve been on the wrong side of every major social issue of the past two centuries, conservatives are wrong, dead wrong, about gay marriage. I’m glad to see our leader leading from the front. Slacktivist Fred Clark with a good link roundup on this.

White House Tours Do Not Require Fetuses To Be Counted As Full Humans — The fact that this is even a story is further evidence that conservatives are basically nuts.

Bipartisanship Is a Lost Cause — I still remember Barney Frank’s comment about “unilateral bipartisanship“.

?otd: Gonna drive your daddy to drink in’?

5/10/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (brain break)
Body movement: n/a (airport walking to come)
Hours slept: 4.25 (fitful, and yes, that is not a typo)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: The Constantine Affliction by T. Aaron Payton

Tags: climate, Cool, Food, gay, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, Religion, Science, Tech, Travel, weird

Posted: 4:44 am Thu May 10 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad has never been more ready in its entire life

One in six cancers worldwide are caused by infection

Bandersnatch Cummerbund: not a typo, not a cupertino — Hahahah.

An Economic Lifeline of Barley and Hops — An interesting story about beer and small town economics in rural Oregon.

Abraham Lincoln Filed a Patent for Facebook in 1845 — As it were. Weird. (Via danjite.)

Space weather expert has ominous forecast — Mike Hapgood, who studies solar events, says the world isn’t prepared for a truly damaging storm. And one could happen soon.

Pacific ‘garbage patch’ changing insect mating habits

Physicists Store Short Movie In A Cloud of Gas — Sometimes the jokes just write themselves. (Though this is in fact a cool science story.)

Shuttle Enterprise Over New York — Very nice photo from APOD.

NC pastor created lies about gay sex because of his ‘religious views’ — This is why ‘real Americans’ vote Republican – for the moral leadership provided by conservatives. What are a few bald-faced lies so long as they validate your worldview, right? That bit about bearing false witness in the Ten Commandments isn’t nearly as important as God’s hatred of gay people, right?

North Carolina voters approve amendment defining marriage as union between a man and woman — Another victory in the conservative march toward a closed and intolerant society. I really don’t want to live in their America. Do you?

Moving the economic goalposts — But the other concern here is historical — over the last three decades, the unemployment rate has dipped below 4% just four times out of 496 months. Each of those four months was during Bill Clinton’s presidency. In other words, Romney’s goal was achieved, but only after a Democratic president raised taxes in 1993. Ah, conservatives and their cherished ignorance of history.

The Opportunity Society — Does Tagg Romney actually believe that his dad had nothing to do with his successful entry into the private equity game, and the millions he has made and will continue to make are the result only of his own merit? That his life is radically different from those of the millions of people struggling to get by only because they don’t work as hard as he does, or have his gumption and entrepreneurial spirit? (Snurched from Slacktivist Fred Clark.)

Romney: I Take Credit for the Auto Rescue — Wow. He’s not even pretending to consistency any more. This would be the same Mitt Romney who wanted to let the automakers fail, right? Good thing for him that likely Republican voters are largely divorced from reality and will fall for the Etch-a-Sketch routine every time. It must be nice to have a low-information, ideologically blinkered base like the GOP does. Helps avoid those pesky requirements for accountability and consistency.

?otd: Could it be nice to be alive?

5/9/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (brain break)
Body movement: 1.0 hour urban walk
Hours slept: 6.25 (solid)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: The Constantine Affliction by T. Aaron Payton

Tags: business, Cancer, Cool, Culture, Food, Funny, gay, healthcare, Language, Links, Personal, Photos, Politics, Science, sex, Tech, weird

Posted: 5:47 am Wed May 09 2012 | Comments(0) |